Trial by Desire (Carhart #2)

Ned winked at Kate, and her toes curled.

“I don’t dare move,” she confessed.

“Really?” He gave her a naughty smile. “I can think of a dozen ways in which I might use that to my benefit.”

Kate swallowed. If she’d been reluctant to move before, his words rooted her in place now. Her half boots seemed to be made of thick iron. Her arms were bound at her side. Her mind filled with all the wicked things he might do to her. He might kiss her. He might run his hand down her side. He might undo those mother-of-pearl buttons at her neck and peel back the lace at her bodice.

He looked in her eyes. That old, heady desire swirled through her. A breeze eddied between their bodies, and she felt its caress as if it were his. His eyes narrowed, oh so subtly. He leaned forward.

Maybe this was why she had come here, danger or no danger, plan or no plan. She needed to assure herself that on some basic, primeval level, Edward Carhart still thought of her as his wife. To see if he would treat her as carefully, as gentlemanly, as before.

Champion moved away. Kate felt an elusive brush of wind against the nape of her neck, a wisp of air turning to nothing. Then, the clop of hooves.

“There,” Ned said. He had not dropped his gaze. Her lips tingled; her skin seemed too tight. He was going to kiss her. And foolishly, after three years of absence, she still wanted him to try. She wanted to believe he would attempt to revitalize their phantom marriage. She wanted to put her hands on the rough, wet fabric of his shirt, to feel the skin beneath. She wanted a taste of his carefree casualness, some indication that he thought of her as more than a delicate duke’s daughter. She wanted to believe he felt something for her, even if it was an emotion as evanescent and fleeting as desire. She bit her lip in an agony, waiting for him to move forward.

Instead he pulled away. “There,” he declared again. “Now you’re free to leave.”

Leave. She could leave? She stared at his profile in disbelief. After he’d practically pinned her to a fence post and joked he could use her twelve ways—after all that, he thought she could leave before he tried even one of them?

She bit her lip, hard. She could taste copper salt on her tongue. She could finally breathe now—and her breath seemed heated to fury.

“I can leave?”

He didn’t look back at her. His hands were balled at his sides.

“I can leave? And here I thought that was what you were best at.”

He flinched and looked back at her. “I was trying to be a gentleman.”

“I think,” Kate said, “you are the most obtuse man in all of Christendom.”

“Possible, but unlikely.” He gave her an apologetic shrug. “There are a great many Christians, and a good number of them are idiots. If there were not, Britain would never have gotten into a war with China over the importation of opium.”

She kicked at his boot—not hard, but enough to vent her frustration in physical form. “If I want to speak in hyperbole, I am going to do it. And don’t believe you can stop me with irrelevant political analysis. It’s neither sporting nor gentlemanly.”

“Trust me,” he said wryly, “right now, all I can think about is being a gentleman. It taxes my brain to think of anything except my gentlemanly duties.”

He swallowed and glanced down her neck. It was almost as if he’d never left, as if they were three months into their marriage. As if she were the one yearning forward, while he held himself back in polite denial.

“I retract my statement.” Her voice shook. “You are not the most obtuse man in all of Christendom.”

“No, no. You were perfectly right. The lady of the pasture always retains the right to hyperbole. Use it with my blessing.”

“There’s no need,” Kate said. “I’ve realized that I am the most obtuse woman.”

That finally brought his gaze flying from her bodice to her eyes.

She’d come out here to see if there was any substance to this marriage of theirs, to ascertain if he could accept a wife who took on unladylike pursuits. But she was still susceptible to him after all these years. And despite his informal attire, he still treated her as if he were the consummate gentleman.

“Here I am,” she continued, her voice still shaking, “practically begging you to kiss me. That you haven’t done so…well. I’m not so innocent that I miss the import of that. Men are creatures of lust, and if you haven’t given in to yours, you probably haven’t got any. At least not for me.”

His mouth dropped open.

“Just say so.” She looked up into his eyes. “Make this simple for both of us, if you will. Tell me you have no interest in me. Tell me, so I can stop standing in the middle of a field, believing you might kiss me. It’s been three years, Ned, and I am sick to death of waiting for you.”